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Comment by Waterluvian | Hacker News Reader

They also commit a form of fraud that Amazon seems disinterested in fixing: they’ll take a listing with thousands of good reviews and comments and completely swap out the product.

I once tried to buy a pulse oximeter and all the reviews for the most popular one were about replacement bike tires.

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Alternative vew: Amazon commits this fraud with their hands, like a drug kingpin that manages dealers and keeps his hands clean.

I would not be surprised if they bribe the employees.

That would be difficult to pull off without collusion with an insider doing an end run around the support platform. The support platform is heavily locked down (to a degree I've never seen with other retailers) and surveilled.

But it sounds like it would be trivial to look the other way on these investigations, as evident by their repeated lack of action.

Most likely though someone at Amazon doesn't want to hurt their metrics for sales/relevance.

Is that so unlikely? People commit treason for $100k. Here we’re talking about much, much more at stake.

and much less in the way od punishment

Not necessary. Amazon doesn't need to bribe anyone because no one bothers to hold them accountable.

I think they are complicit. I've left reviews on products about how the 5 star reviews are for a different product (people uploaded photos in their reviews, which aren't for the current listing's product) and Amazon itself removed my reviews.

Whether systemically or through incompetence, they definitely share responsibility for this fraud.

AMZN has no comprehension that the obvious fraud listings cause some people to think there must be other fraud listings too and make people less inclined to buy from AMZN.

I'd have to agree. There are so many levels of fraud and other violations (deceptive business practices) going on at that place.

Any other legitimate business would be taken to task for a quarter of what they are doing. Maybe they know they can get away with it because they have a blanket liability shield from the AWS contracts?

Did you actually review the product? I think it makes some sense they removed it if you didn’t.

Also, what use is it to point that out with a review? Surely people who actually look at the reviews would notice anyway?

Yes, the products were horrible and I reviewed as such.

The reviews aren't ordered in a way that makes that obvious. You usually have to dig deep to find these. If you only look at the first page of reviews you are likely not going to see the photo reviews.

The photos from reviews are normally always listed just before the review listing begins though?

Found the Amazon mod

Amazon is not law enforcement. You should actually blame the government and disinterested services like police.

If someone created an online store like Amazon and essentially gave fraudsters free reign, they would be closed in no time, but this company is too big to fail and nobody seems to want to upset the billionaire owning it.

It's a classic example of one set of laws for the rich and another for the pleb.

I do blame Amazon for their short-sightedness. This is driving people away from using them and in the long term I don't think it will have been good to allow this sketchy shit.

You are right that other consumer protection laws etc. should be put in place to make fake reviews, product listing swap-outs etc. impossible.

Seems they're following the eBay model. Since they profit from the fraud they won't stop it.

Why not both? I can easily blame Amazon for scamming me (anything that happens via Amazon.tld is Amazon's doing), and regulators/courts for taking the brib... lobbying money and suddenly losing interest in doing their job in this particular case.

Yes, Amazon is not law enforcement. Law Enforcement should investigate Amazon for helping perpetuate this fraud.

if Amazon is innocent then Alcapone and mafia bisses are innocent - after all they did have to get Alcapone for income tax evasion, therw was no proof that he ever personally killed or extorted anyone.

Amazon knows exactly whats is happening and they are profiting off it

I think this may just be a weird autocorrect, but on the chance it’s not, FYI the guy’s first name is (/was) Al, and his last name is Capone. Al Capone.

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